An Audience With the Shadow Queen
by 4th of Eleven
Summary: Thousands of years after KotOR 2, a young Palpatine seeks the knowledge of an ancient Sith lord.


"A true Sith never dies." Palpatine murmured to himself. Plagueis had said that, many times, telling stories of the great Sith Lords of the past whose spirits had continued to manifest in their tombs or at the site of their death, continuing to guide their descendants hundreds or even thousands of years after their physical bodies had crumbled to dust. Palpatine had begun to wonder if any of it was true, or if the aged dark lord had just been clinging to old legends to avoid confronting his own mortality.

Darth Plagueis' holocrons had contained lists of the tombs of the ancient Sith lords, and for almost a decade Palpatine had secretly visited each one, trying in vain to call forth the dead. He had spent more than three months on Korriban alone, seeking the spirit of Ajunta Pall, founder of the first Sith Empire. He had found nothing but a crumbling sarcophagus, its contents stolen centuries before. The other tombs had proven just as worthless; most destroyed by looters or by later Sith determined to erase the memory of their predecessors.

Perhaps if Plagueis was still with him, he could have summoned forth the shades of the old Sith, on Korriban, on Ruusan, on any of the ancient Sith worlds Palpatine had visited in vain seeking the knowledge and power of the ancients who had brought the Republic to its knees in the great Sith Wars. But Plagueis was dead, by Palpatine's own hand, murdered in his sleep by an arrogant young apprentice who foolishly believed he had already learned all he could from the old Muun.

Eventually, Palpatine had decided that he would learn nothing new from the tombs his old master had already known of. Only by uncovering lost tombs could he hope to find the secrets of the ancient power he sought. So many of the greatest Sith lords' resting places were unknown - where was the legendary mausoleum of Exar Kun, or the crypt of Naga Sadow? On what world had Darth Bandon fallen, or his master Malak? Even if their spirits had not survived their death, surely some their teachings and secrets had been buried with them.

It had taken years of searching, but finally Palpatine had uncovered another Sith holocron, buried in the ruins of a forgotten world on the outer rim named Lehon. It had taken more than a week of effort to bend the device to his will, but finally he had forced the artefact to release its secrets - information on the great Sith lords of the Jedi Civil War, and the final fate of one of the most mysterious of the ancient Sith, and, if the legends Plagueis had once told him of her were accurate, one of the most powerful.

"Computer." Palpatine spoke as he strapped himself into his shuttle's cockpit. "Plot a course to the Malachor system."

* * *

Palpatine awoke to darkness, on a cold stone floor. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom, he began to take in his surroundings. Great stone pillars rose from the ground, surrounding a platform suspended above a deep rock cavern. He could see no sign of his ship. The last thing he remembered was coming out of hyperspace into orbit of the fifth planet of the Malachor system.

Malachor V was a dead world, destroyed four thousand years ago, during the height of the Mandalorian War. Tens of thousands of soldiers, both Mandalorian and Republican, had died here in an instant when the legendary Sith general Revan had activated massive gravity well generators in the centre of the Mandalorian fleet. The planet itself had been torn apart by the gravitational stresses, the remains orbiting the Malachor sun as a loose asteroid belt.

But it was not the shades of Mandalorian raiders or Republic officers that Palpatine was seeking; not even the spirits of the hundreds of Jedi knights that had been sacrificed by Revan to achieve her victory over the Mandalorians. The Lehon holocron had told him that Malachor V hid darker secrets that that - a hidden Sith academy, buried in the core of the shattered world, where the ancient Sith Triumvirate had planned the near-total destruction of the remnants of the Jedi order in the years following the Jedi civil war. Here, the holocron said, the mysterious Darth Traya had met her death, murdered by her final apprentice, a young Jedi knight she had sought to teach the ways of the Sith...

"And what brings you here, seeking wisdom from the dead?" A voice spoke, interrupting his thoughts.

Palpatine turned and saw an old woman standing behind him, hooded and dressed in black robes. A lightsaber hung at her belt, and her left hand was concealed beneath her robe - or missing altogether.

"Darth Traya?" Palpatine spoke.

"Is that why you came here, to this shattered world?" She said, a thin smile appearing on her pale lips. "To seek the wisdom of the great and powerful Darth Traya? Do you seek to walk the path I once did, to master the powers of the dark side of the Force?"

"Yes, I would know your secrets." Palpatine nodded. "With your guidance, I will master the power within me, and restore the Sith to greatness."

"Will you now?" The woman said, staring coldly at Palpatine. "And then what? Will you accept all that comes with walking the path I followed? You say you would learn the teachings of Darth Traya? Darth Traya, who was betrayed by all she taught, Darth Traya who walked the galaxy alone, and who in the end, failed at all she sought to achieve, and is now nothing more than a shadow on a dead world, clinging to this illusion of life because...

Because for all I have been betrayed, I still cling to the hope that one will come who will truly understand my lessons."

The two stared at each other for a moment. Palpatine could feel the power emanating from the shade of the old woman. She had reduced the Jedi order to only a handful of survivors; legend had it that she had trained Revan herself! Compared to her, Plagueis and the others he had learned from were amateurs, children dabbling in mysteries they had no real understanding of. If he could learn but a fraction of her secrets...

"Yes, I will learn from you." Palpatine said, finally, kneeling before the shade. "I will walk your path, and learn from your errors... my master."

"Fool." The woman sneered. "Do you think I do not know who you are? Palpatine, Darth Sidious, Plagueis' betrayer, last of the Sith. You would learn nothing from me. You already serve a far greater master... and it is one I cannot abide."

"I do?" Palpatine asked, caught in mid-kneel, confused, wondering if this was some sort of test.

"Do you not realise?" The woman said, the thin smile appearing on her face again. "Do you still believe you are its master, that you are in control? Oh, you will achieve that power you believe you deserve - but only because it wants you to, for its own purposes...

Can you not feel its pull? Reach out, sense the connections it makes, the bonds surrounding you..."

"I-" Palpatine stopped, as he reached out with the Force, as he had been taught long ago. "There is... anger, here, I can see it...pain... death...overwhelming."

"Ignore them." The woman shook her head, and Palpatine could feel her guiding his senses as the feelings of hatred faded. "They are but the victims of Malachor... dead four thousand years but still clinging to their pain - crying out for vengeance, shouting of their betrayal. Fitting companions in death for one such as I, but of little interest to you. No, stretch your feelings outward - see the web we all walk in."

Plagueis had taught him to feel the Force around him, but only on a very small scale; across a room, perhaps. Now, Palpatine felt like he could feel the Force across an entire sector - across the entire galaxy! Slowly, he began to recognise the pattern, see what the old woman was speaking of. He could feel the Force within him, linking him to Malachor, to his ship, to the people he knew and the worlds he had visited - a network of bonds, tying together all life, all matter together through the Force.

"It surrounds us all. Ties us together, binds us to one another." The woman spoke. "It shackles the galaxy together... and it has its own will. We are but puppets, following its destiny, its goals. The more one grows in power in the Force, the stronger it chains you to itself.

Once, I sought to master it, only to realise that I was only serving its design. Then I sought to break it, to end its rule. And now, I cling to this remnant of life because so long as part of me endures, it has not yet fully defeated me. And it is weaker now, because of what I did, because the echo of what I achieved still lingers, still disrupts the cage it has constructed around all life."

"If you would teach me your secrets," Palpatine spoke. "I would complete your work-"

"Would you now?" The woman laughed. "And why do you need my secrets to do that? You could complete my work simply by leaving this place, returning to your home, and abandoning your quest for mastery of the dark side! Do you not understand anything you have seen? The Force flows through you more powerfully than any I have ever seen before, save perhaps one. It seeks to use your power as an example, to repair the damage I caused it so long ago. Much depends on you; if you would abandon the Force, live without its power...

Well, it is useless to consider such things. You would not sacrifice your own power just to spite it. No, I can see what you are, what you desire. You would rather be consumed by it than ever willingly relinquish it. You are as I was, once, as Darth Traya was when she held the galaxy by the throat and still thought she could control that power.

Someday, perhaps, you will see what I have seen, know what I have known. Not today, though, not now. I could try and teach you, to convince you, but you would not listen. You nod now, and say you understand, but you lie because you think you have use for me, as you used Plagueis, as you have used so many others. You would become another betrayal, another failure, like all my apprentices. So I shall not try."

"But..." Palpatine paused, considering carefully his words. "There must be something you can tell me, something I would understand?"

"Perhaps." The woman said finally. "I do not know what good it will do... but I can tell you this. The Force seeks to make you its servant; do not become dependant on it. Use it as little as possible; find other forms of power. Consider the web it has created; even the smallest action, properly timed and placed, can create a great echo across the galaxy. Walk lightly, and keep to the shadows.

And do not go to the dead for counsel. We can only teach you of our failures..."

* * *

Palpatine awoke in the cockpit of his shuttle. The chrono indicated he'd only been out for a few minutes. He looked out at the slowly turning asteroids that were all that remained of Malachor. Silently, he scanned the debris field for anything that resembled a structure or a life form. He found nothing; if there had ever been an academy at Malachor V, it had not survived the world's destruction.

"Computer." He finally said. "Plot a course back to Naboo, and make the jump to hyperspace..."

* * *

The shade of Kreia, the one who had been Darth Traya, the Lord of Betrayal, shook her head as she felt the ship leave the system.

"That one had some potential, once." She whispered finally. "And he may yet walk a path of restraint... for a time. In the end, his drive for power will overwhelm him."

Silently, she waited among the ruins of Malachor V and the Sith Academy, waiting, as she had for centuries, one who would understand her teachings.


End file.
